My email address is impervious to most of the bad things in this world that you can throw at it. Is yours?.
I know a secret. That secret involves a major question "How to do you create a bullet proof Email address?" The short answer, in my opinion, is "Yes" it is possible. However, there is still an education problem that you will have before it become impervious to abuse. The biggest abuse we have at the moment is of course Spam.
But before I go any further let me explain a few things. Well, nothing too technical anyway.
From a human perspective we tend to share things. We also assume that our friends will not let us down or expose us to bad situations. Right? For the most part this is absolutely true until you mix an email address into the mix.
So let us step back and look at the picture from a different perspective.
We know that our friends would not let us down so how do spammers get our most personal address to our computer. Think. Think. Think. Think.
Have you ever seen these websites where you join and you think it is the coolest thing since IM? Oh wait! They might ask you if you want to invite anyone. Did one of your friends enter your email address into a web form? Hmmm... How about a forum or even a newsgroup?
Okay. You must REALLY want to know what the perfect email address is.
Let's recap.
The left side of the "@" is typically identified as the mailbox. What this means is that within the email server where your domain name is located contains mailboxes. That is correct. This is where your actual email is delivered to.
So most of the time either you or your friends share this mailbox name with others along with the domain name where you are located.
So think about this. Would you leave a key outside your house for ANYONE to use to say drop a package off to you when you were not at home? No, you would not do that.
But we have done that with our email addresses. The biggest difference here is that they can come in a dump junk into our mailbox. They cannot take anything but they can sure screw up our storage space.
So how do we create an email address that will remain completely private?
Remember in a previous article that my domain name is buddyshearer.com? Well guess what? My friends do not email me at buddy@ my domain name. Nor do they use bshearer@ my domain name. Are you my friend? Not yet anyway. See how secret it is. My friends know it.
No. I am not pulling your leg please read on there is a left side.
My friends know exactly where I live. As in the house number and street address. That is my secret.
123-mystreet @ buddyshearer.com
You can change your "123-mystreet" to anything that is more personal.
We are not done yet so keep reading.
Here is what I have done.
Number 1: I purchased my domain name. Yes this is an expense and you will also need a hosting account at some provider.
Number 2: I setup my catch-all configuration.
Dotsters definition is this "You have a way to set up your Mail service to deal with mail that comes for users who do not exist on your domain(s). There are two available ways of handling such mail: to bounce a letter with a certain message or to redirect (catch) all such mail to a specified e-mail address."
Dotsters definition is this "You have a way to set up your Mail service to deal with mail that comes for users who do not exist on your domain(s). There are two available ways of handling such mail: to bounce a letter with a certain message or to redirect (catch) all such mail to a specified e-mail address."
If someone should send me an email they will have to know my secret left side. If they try guessing then it will go to my catch-all configuration. I can still get it but it is easier to keep out of my OutLook or OutLook Express. Usually I send these to my public email address like Yahoo or Google.
Number 3: Once my catch-all is configured I then setup my mailboxes. Yes mailboxes. This is where it gets to be fun. My friends know that I will change the left side of my domain name from time to time but they also know a phrase to add to the subject line just in case.
Number 4: Here is what I do when I am asked for an email address. Let's say I go over to the website of the Absolute Best Authoritative person on the net for Googles AdSense. And let's say the site wants an email address so they can add me to their list. No problem.
If it is a site that I want to continue to receive their emails or sales pitches then I will build a new mailbox address to be AdSensePro @ buddyshearer.com. But before I do that, they will go to my catch-all path until they prove they are worthy to come in.
I then set up rules in my OutLook Express to grab that email when it comes in and it gets filed into my AdSense Email folder.
To date. No Spam. No Email viruses. And no trouble.
Does this make sense? I hope so. If you are a committed Net citizen then you have to think outside of the box. I hope this process is far enough outside the box to keep the people I want out and my circle of friends close.
If you think this article was unique then you will never guess what I have up my sleeve.
Copyright (c) 2006 Buddy Shearer
Buddy Shearer is not a sought-after Internet marketer but rather a regular guy trying to make a living. He can be found at http://buddyshearer.com
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